Our research in Evolutionary Anthropology is highly interdisciplinary and uses a range of approaches, including observational studies of humans and non-human primates, experiments on social transmission and cultural evolution, comparative analysis across societies and across species, physiology, anatomy and theoretical modelling.
Contact Research Co-ordinator: Dr Jeremy Kendal
Some of our Evolutionary Anthropology seminars are open to the public alongside our university community. Some are also live streamed through Zoom. For further information about individual seminars or the whole series, please contact Senior Research Administrator, Kate Payne (kate.payne@durham.ac.uk).
Building locations and directions are available through Google Maps.
Please also note that our other Research Groups will be presenting their own seminar series' during this period. You can find details on their Research Group pages: Anthropology of Health (AHRG) and Social Anthropology (SARG).
Wednesday 9 October, 15.30 - 17.00 (D216, Dawson Building)
Studying non-human species objectively is inherently challenging, especially for ‘charismatic’ and ostensibly human-like behaviours. Animal tool use is a prime example: often considered a hallmark of intelligence, tool use attracts widespread attention from academic and wider audiences alike. In contrast, other behaviours that appear to involve similar manipulative skill, particularly nest building, do not seem to capture the same level of interest. Here, we reveal striking disparities in the treatment of tool use and nest building in the animal behaviour literature. We find that tool use publications have higher citation rates and make more frequent use of terminology suggestive of ‘intelligence’ and human-like cognition compared with nest building publications. Tool use articles are also more likely to be published in high-impact and cognition-focused journals than nest building articles. Further, we find that articles with more frequent use of ‘intelligent’ terminology are more highly cited, suggesting incentives for the use of illustrative language in scientific articles. Our findings are not confounded by taxonomic biases: disparities persist even within studies of great ape (Hominidae) and Corvus species. We argue that tool use does not necessarily require more complex cognition than nest building and therefore that these disparities are driven by unconscious biases among researchers, meaning that the widespread appeal of animal tool use is partly driven by anthropocentrism.
Wednesday 16 October, 13.00 - 14.30 (D210, Dawson Building)
The fact that rapid brain size increase was clearly a key aspect of human evolution has prompted many studies focusing on this phenomenon, and many suggestions as to the underlying evolutionary patterns and processes. No study to date has, however, separated out the contributions of change through time within- vs. between- hominin species whilst simultaneously incorporating effects of body size. Using a phylogenetic approach never previously applied to palaeoanthropological data, we show that brain size increase across ~ 7 million years of hominin evolution arose from increases within individual species which account for an observed overall increase in relative brain size. Variation among species in brain size after accounting for this effect is associated with body mass differences but not time. In addition, our analysis also reveals that the within-species trend escalated in more recent lineages, implying an overall pattern of accelerating brain size increase through time. This new perspective on hominin brain size evolution opens a new door to robustly testing potential drivers of brain size increase. Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain how climate and environment drive the selection of larger brain sizes. However, climate-environmental selective pressures are often assumed to act in isolation and rarely have between- and within-species effects been considered. Using our phylogenetic approach to test the effect of climate-environmental pressures on brain size evolution in hominins, we find that colder and more variable temperatures have a positive within-species effect on brain size evolution. However, in Homo, the strength of this effect diminishes over time, suggesting that in later species (Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis), brain sizes were less affected by climatic conditions.
Wednesday 30 October, 13.00 - 14.30 (D216, Dawson Building)
Wednesday 13 November, 13.00 - 14.30 (D210, Dawson Building)
Wednesday 27 November, 13.00 - 14.30 (D210, Dawson Building)
Wednesday 11 December, 15.00 (CLC407, Calman Learning Centre)
In ‘Becoming Salmon’, Marianne Lien argues that multi-species or post-human ethnography requires a methodological toolkit that human ethnographers are not currently equipped with (2015:15). Acknowledging the sociality of non-humans is but a starting point for ethnography beyond words. Being with, alongside, and making our bodies available for communication are some of the approaches that can enact the decentering of the human. Pioneers in primatology took this approach, accompanying primates in their everyday life and making space to imagine possibilities for embodied communication. Yet such imaginative openness became unwelcome as methods of quantifying behaviour were developed. Could an approach to multi-species being and becoming be a site for dialogue across Anthropology?
Speakers:
Discussant:
Wednesday 15 January, 13.00 - 14.30 (D210, Dawson Building)
Wednesday 22 January, 13.00 - 14.30 (D210, Dawson Building)
Wednesday 5 February, 13.00 - 14.30 (D104, Dawson Building)
Tuesday 18 February, 13.00 - 14.00 (L50, Psychology Building)
(Room L50 is situated down the hallway between Psychology and Biosciences)
Wednesday 26 February, 15.00 (CLC407, Calman Learning Centre)
Wednesday 5 March, 13.00 - 14.30 (D210, Dawson Building)
We offer a range of postgraduate taught programmes offering the opportunity to pursue advanced specialist courses and also conversion courses from other degrees.
We are one of the largest departments of Anthropology in the UK, spanning social anthropology, evolutionary anthropology and the anthropology of health.
Contact us to find out more about undergraduate and postgraduate opportunities in our Department.
Durham UniversityDawson BuildingSouth RoadDurham, DH1 3LE
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